Friday, September 28, 2007

THE WHO, 30 Years Maximum R&B box setMelody Maker, 1994

For a while there, it seemed that The Who had dipped outof rock memory, become a band that virtually no one eventhought about. They seemed to have the same relation vis-a-vis the eternally cool and current Beatles & Stones that,say, Deep Purple have to Sabbath & Zep: massive then,monstrously uninfluential thereafter. In recent years,though, The Who have slowly seeped back as a reference point,what with Urge Overkill's Live At Leeds sharp-dressedrifferama and the mod iconography of groups at diverse asFlowered Up, These Animal Men, Blur, D-Generation, and PrimalScream (that ad for 'Rocks' featuring Keith Moon).

Personally, I find there's something resolutelyunloveable about The Who, although why I'm not sure. PeteTownshend's mid-life crisis and endless maudlin' musings onlost youth? Roger Daltrey's voice, face, and fish-farm?Just the FACT (I haven't heard 'em) that John Entwhistlereleased FIVE solo LP's? Perhaps the real reason is the boy-ness of The Who cult (and of their legacy, The Jam, SecretAffair etc). Somehow it's obvious that way fewer women caredabout The Who than The Stones, Beatles or even Led Zep.

Still, I love the mod-psych bands who never made it--TheEyes, John's Children, The Creation--so I can't logicallyrefute the thrill of "I Can't Explain", "Anyway AnyhowAnywhere", "Substitute". At their 1965/66 height, The Who'swhite R&B is so amped-up and amphetamine-uptight it's comingapart at the seams. "My Generation" remains as nafflyirresistible as Steppenwolf's equally naive "Born To BeWild"; Moon's ramshackle surf-drums, exploding everywhichwaylike Mitch Mitchell of the Experience, Townshend's slash-and-scald rhythm guitar, Entwhistle's bass-lunges and Daltrey'sspeed-freak stutter, all add up to an immaculately chaoticenactment of mod's "smashed, blocked" aggression, its rage-to-live and hunger for action.

With the arrival of psychedelia, The Who toyed with theera's fashionable tropes of androgyny ("I'm A Boy"'s FrankSpencer scenario, where mummy won't admit he's not a girl),and regression (the fey "creepy-crawly" terrors of "Boris TheSpider"). There were gems here (the effete all-wanked-outvocals of the masturbation ode "Pictures Of Lily"), butmostly The Who's acid-phase is unusually unappetising. "ICan See For Miles" turns mod misogny into visionary paranoia,and the swooping phased guitars of "Armenia" thrill, but thepallid, fey vocals of this period are pretty pukey.

Then the bombast begins in earnest. Daltrey quicklyswells into the least likeable white R&B singer this side ofJoe Cocker, while Townshend's songs bloat up like houses withtoo many extensions. The Who's progressive aspirations areall on the level of structure rather than playing or texture(which remained coarse R&B); the result is a horrid fusion ofprog-rock and pub rock. So, apart from "Tommy"'s onegenuinely hymnal aria ("See Me Feel Me") and the just-about-takeable epic-ness of their post-counterculture allegory"Won't Get Fooled Again", a long blank void ensues--one whosecontinuance seemed increasingly mercenary as the Seventiesproceed. Even at their most haggard, The Stones could re-ignite with the lubricious raunch of a "Start Me Up". TheWho's equivalent twilight hit is "You Better You Bet", a songwith only one fan in the entire world, Taylor Parkes, andonly then for the most perverse, "it's so bad, it's....really MINDBOGGLINGLY bad" of reasons.30 Years Maximum R & B? Break that down, and it worksout at roughly 4 and a half years of adolescent intensity andtwo and a half decades of graceless middle-age.